One of the four small red persimmon shaped fruits rests in my palm.
It already is of high quality, and has a strong mid grade enchantment. In its current state it's already more potent than some of the spirit fruits after I've upgraded them to heavenly grade in the past.
This makes me even more excited to see what it'll turn into.
I use an upgrade card, and watch the dense white glow in its center become brighter.
The vibrations tethered into its skin become tighter and more vibrant red.
Familiar golden vine patterns wrap around the tiny fruit, and an overwhelmingly sweet metallic scent fills the entire hidden realm.
My mouth waters, and I can even feel my physique vibrating in anticipation.
There is no instinctual sense of danger coming off this fruit, like some upgraded items have given off before.
I take a few deep breaths, cycle my cultivation technique, and take a bite out of the fruit.
There are no seeds, and the inside is made of a pure white juicy flesh.
It melts in my mouth, and flares up my meridians while making its way through my body, just like eating a few drops of rock bee honey would when I trained with it in the past. Some of the energy pours into my dantian as raw qi, but it isn't much more than what's present in a high-grade qi nourishing pill.
I still don't sense any danger, and crave more, so I take a second and third bite, finishing the whole fruit.
The full effects kick in a few seconds later, and mostly come from the red outer skin. Now patterned with golden heavenly aura, it floods into my flesh and bones, vibrating and sinking in with a light tingling sensation.
This is what Lan Xin referred to as the Body Reinforcement enchantment. Now, at the perfected stage.
My whole body heats up, and when I take my next breath, the air coming out feels a few degrees hotter.
My muscles feel heavier and stronger while my bones feel more dense.
When my qi makes another cycle through all my meridians, I feel no strain at all.
Curiously, I attempt channeling some qi through my spirit roots.
I only use a small amount of qi to release fire, water, and earth from my body over the course of about a full minute.
When I get to metal and wood, the pathways feel much more stable. For the first time, small silver particles of metal-infused qi actually consolidate on my forearms, and a dim green glow escapes my chest.
I get excited, and push more qi into these weaker elements to practice them while the effects of this milk fruit are still present.
My muscles and bones do not flinch or give way, even when stray streams of sharp metal qi escape from my meridians in erratic patterns that would usually force me to take a healing elixir and restart hours later.
My whole body is numb and relaxed, allowing me to practice for a few more minutes until I completely run out of qi.
I simply close my eyes and use my Jade Purity Soul Scripture and the natural qi coming off the array to fill my dantian again over the next hour, then jump right back into the element cycling process.
The rigid vibrations from the milk fruit fade, but at a very slow rate.
I concentrate, and manage to practice these movements over 20 times, as an entire day passes by.
The fruit's stimulating effects begin to wear off.
During the last few practiced cycles, I feel my flared meridians and spirit roots contract back down to their natural state.
The Body Reinforcement enchantment seeping into my flesh and bones to keep them sturdy loses its helpful effects too. However, a faint resonance in my Martial Grandmaster physique lingers.
It feels like a new layer of depth I hadn't touched before was just learned. I feel slightly stronger and more physically robust.
Sharp prickling pain comes back from overworking my spirit roots, but oddly enough, some sessions with rock bee honey left me feeling more sore, with less progress.
I swallow a single heavenly-grade healing elixir, and spend a full day healing up, relaxing in my hot pool, and sleeping. Then, return to my hidden realm.
The bottleneck in my cultivation is cracking all over.
My spirit roots are just slightly sore, to the point where I wish I could have done even more before that fruit's effects wore off.
I managed to safely get weeks' worth of root maturity training with rock bee honey done in a day and a half with this fruit.
Still, there is a major gap in the potential efficiency.
I'm only training for a few minutes at a time, and need over an hour to refill my dantian in between.
The problem is, once I saturate raw qi with any given element, it needs to be released from my body. I cannot recultivate qi of a single element back into my dantian.
Instead of jumping right back into training with the other half a fruit, I walk up to the enlightenment island and buy another.
The cooldown has worn off, and I feel like I have all the pieces of a puzzle scattered apart in my system storage, but no concrete way to easily fit them all together.
I use upgrade cards to prepare, turning the remaining three milk fruits into heavenly golden patterned treasures.
I tap a card to almost everything in my inventory that looks promising. The inferior-grade enchanted sword grass, unique-looking herbs I looted off the Jiang Clan's elders, and a handful of random elixirs like healing pills, marrow-cleansing pills, and even some qi nourishing pills just to be safe.
I even try tapping some of the soul jade and metal, but it has no enchantments and they are inferior-grade tier 2 in nature, not activating on the spot.
The only strange item I'm able to upgrade from the illusory demon's loot is that brittle jade slip the last demon held.
When I tap it, it becomes denser with qi, like more information was added inside, but the basic tier 2 material making up the artifact itself doesn't change.
I feel like now I'm setting myself up for the best result possible.
The concise problem I want to achieve is simple.
I want to understand a way to mature my roots faster, and use the rest of these red milk fruits as efficiently as I can.
One other thought does come to mind. There is still basically no practical use for this elemental qi control other than maturing my spirit roots.
I'm capable of forming a Martial Fireball in a few seconds, under extreme concentration, but that is my fastest spell.
In a real combat scenario, I'm far better off punching an enemy if I have no talismans or artifacts left.
Even releasing raw water qi takes over ten seconds in its most simple form, that doesn't even account for manipulating it with a spell. The other three elements are even slower and more useless.
A faster way to cast spells and use this elemental control to my advantage is another important task in my mind as I narrow down my focus.
I imprint the small piece of white jade in the center of the array, and let its warm light surround me. The golden character disappears into my forehead, and my 3rd moment of enlightenment begins.
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Author's Note:
One chapter of Five Element Overlord will be posted every weekday: M,T,W,TH,F.
If you'd like to support me, and read 45+ chapters ahead of the public release schedule, my patreon is linked in my bio:)
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